Twyman Noel Bloody Treason

JANUARY, 1998

say 1 was taken quite aback when I glanced at Prof.
Fetzer's analysis in his “Reconstruction" of the crime.
Fetzer has a real howler here (page 371) w en e su 8
eests that the Cabell brothers (Mayor Earle Cabell and
CIA Officer Charles Cabell) were pitted as "two rich and
powerful right-wing politicians against two powerful le -

'no Ml quarrel with F.lze* description oidre
Cabell brothers as right-wing but hts labeling o. to-.
President Ken.-.edy and LBJ as "left-wing pohticians is

right out of fantasy land if not Camelot! Can ro . e e

summon up for us any other "rich left-wing and power-
ful politicians" he knows of before we leave ott with F
and LBJ? And if he can do so how come write
Chomsky and Cockburn have missed out on th.s-were
they asleep while watching the store? None of the po-
litical histories I've read have conjured up any sue

TtSTcontain myself at reading this but what I was
really interested in was not the political realm (where
opinions are offered) but the scientific area (where gYh
dence is required). What follows are only some of the
^Tin Fetzer's and Twyman's "proofs" I disagree with,
before I get into the major theme of alteration and forg-

6 Tl) Fetzer reprints an alleged signed letter (see page
372) dated in 1994 from Evelyn Lincoln who was Presi-
dent Kennedy's secretary. Twyman prints uhe co n tens
of this same letter (see Twyman, page 831). The lette
purports to be a response to a query to her as to her
views on the JFK administration and his assassination.
Lincoln says it is her "belief" that there was a conspiracy
and names "five conspirators" behind the deed. These
five are: LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, the Mafia, the CIA, and
the Cubans in Florida. Fetzer offers this in his work
with no commentary while Twyman in his rendition
notes only a grammatical error.

There are several problematic and disturbing t ings
about this alleged letter that one must come to grips
with before accepting it as gospel truth:

(A) Twyman's notation (catching the grammatical er-
ror) makes one suspicious about who is typing the let-
ter. Wouldn't JFK's personal secretary be the kind of
typist who would not make such an obvious error? This
is the kind of error an amateur would make.

(B) The letter is strangely addressed to "Dear Richard
without the usual full address. Why is that? Again, as in
(A), one would not expect that kind of performance from

1F (C) WeTee Lincoln telling her innermost thoughts to a
perfect stranger. Why choose a stranger to revea I se-
crets about the century's most famous crime. Y

didn't she reveal this hpfore 1994 since undoubted y

others must have written to her?

(D) There seems something odd about the fact a
Ms Lincoln did not mention anything about the "five
conspirators" in her book which appeared in 1966. Or
did it appear in her work and I missed it?

(E) Ms. Lincoln never brought this information forward
before either the Warren Commission or the House Se-
lect Committee. Perhaps it was fear that prevented her
from doing so but this factor of fear doesn't seem to
have entered when she wrote to "Richard .

(F) As a final note there is the matter of the signature
which can be seen in Fetzer's book. That signature ap-
pears to be different from two other signatures I have in
my possession. The validity of this signature would re-
quire the determination of a handwriting expert before
one can reach a conclusion. I must admit, however,
that the points I've raised above do not augur well for

V3 (2) ' TVvyman (page 98) reprints the well known Willis
#5 photo (equivalent to Zapruder frame #20^ How-
ever, his caption reads "taken an instant before Kennedy
was hit." But Twyman contradicts himself further on in
his book when he writes about Rosemary and Phil Willis
and the Betzner photo. (See between pages 1 * n
1 45 the color photo of z-1 88): "Rosemary Willis .was
running along Elm Street...When she heard a shot or
explosion. She then stopped and looked back towa
the Texas School Book Depository. Kennedy is still
waving. The sound of the first shot was indicated tc -be
at approximately this point between frames 1 86 and 202
by the Betzner photo and Willis . photo, one taken be-
fore (Betzner) and one after the first shot (Willis).

Thus we have Twyman having the Willis #5 pho
being taken before and after he was shot! Obviously an
impossibility having nothing to do with alteration in th

Tut then Twyman further complicates his scenario by
stating "that a first shot (or shots) or a diversionary
plosion occurred somewhere between frames an<
188. ..it seems plausible to assume the irs ^ x ^ OSI '|
Lund occurred nearer to frame 1 60 than 88. Geral;

Posner says the first shot was fired before frame 1 66.

r.vrx IH Posner for fixing th

_ re»l\/in0 On

timing sequence on the shots fired! Will he next be
using the Warren Commission's evidence in support of
z-frame and photo alteration? Well, guess what-as we
shall soon see-this is precisely what Twyman does in
one of the most crucial areas of research: The First Shot
Hypothesis. It is my opinion (which I will demonstrate)
that, because Twyman does make use of this, he has
utterly destroyed his case for alteration. Another writer
is invoked by Twyman to argue for a "first shot" which
was "probably fired at (Zapruder) frame 152." If the
reader is confused by all of this it is no wonder that
’ gossip columnist Liz Smith, in her column of December
23, 1997 reviewing Twyman's book, expressed her
thoughts on the whole business by stating: "I am totally
confused again." (Of course, it should be noted here
that Ms. Smith said her last book on the JFK case was
Posner's Case Closed " which she "agreed with", I think
it safe to say that Smith hardly qualifies as a researcher
on the JFK assassination).

(3) Twyman gives Kudoes to Walter Cronkite and says
of him: "he studied the JFK assassination perhaps harder
and longer than any other network newsperson." Natu-
rally after reading this I wondered what the scorecard
showed on those other "newspersons" and, you guessed
it, most would have flunked in their "studies". There is
no need to dredge up who these persons are as most
readers are by now familiar enough with their dismal
record.

But assigning this accomplishment to Cronkite doesn't
square with the facts. If you'll recall, when CBS did a
four part series on the assassination back in 1967 (the
transcripts are available), Cronkite headed the series.

As our treasured national icon, he came off looking
very knowledgeable about what he was saying. But,
according to an aide who worked on the series, Cronkite
did n^t see the script until moments before going on the
television airwaves. Always a good reader, the image
left on the screen was that of a very savvy know-it-all
guy. But it was all image and who is thorp to argue that
television news then (and more so now) is anything but
a jockeying for image portrayal? That I was not fooled
by all of this but apparently Twyman is shows how very
effectively this was done.

(4) In Fetzer's book he enlists writer Ron Helper to
introduce "evidence" that Gov. Connally was hit at
Zapruder frame 3 1 5 (under his armpit) and at frame 338
(wrist shot) (page 211). But the evidence on these two
alleged shots is so shaky and is no way conclusive,. As

JANUARY, 1998

an example Helper cites as "evident" one d~R^
Groden's books, "Ihe Killing of a Pre.irW' wherejn
he lists shot '#6 for the wrist wounding; but Groden's
"reconstruction" is so utterly flawed it cannot be used
as a guidepost.

(5) We come now to writer Chuck Marler whose work
is described in one of the chapters in Fetzer's book. On
page 256 he discusses what he sees as "alteration" in
the Stemmons freeway sign which appears in many
frames of the Zapruder film. According to Marler this
alteration was done (by the forgers) "to increase the
height" in "order to conceal President Kennedy's reac-
tion when struck by the first bullet''.

This concealment makes no sense and cannot be true
if one carefully studies the Zapruder film before JFK dis-
appears behind the sign. JFK can be seen reacting to
something just immediately after Zapruder frame 189
and this is well before frame 207, when JFK begins to
vanish from the scene. Even the House Select Commit-
tee caught JFK in this act and let us ignore for the mo-
ment whether JFK's reaction is due to a sound or a hit ;
certainly, the conspirators would have known and pre-
sumably would have made every effort to "conceal" this.
But apparently they goofed as they were too busy edit-
ing other frames and so good were they at this that they
were able to fool not only the Warren Commission but
the House Select Committee as well! But I must say
that in the case of the Warren Commission, which is no
defense of its role, they never considered determining
which shots struck or missed. They simply left it up to
the reader to decide!

(6) The longest chapter in Fetzer's book is by Doctor
David Mantik and runs some 82 pages (pages 263 to
344). The thrust of his article deals with his claim that
the Zapruder film was altered and his evidence is in the
form of vertical editing (frames excision), horizontaj
gdfong (changes made within the frames) and compos^
lie frames (where one frame is combined with another
to appear as a single frame).

To cite all my reservations in this article on the myriad
of claims Dr. Mantik makes would probably require at
least one more article or perhaps two and possibly even
a book to deal adequately with the subject, but for our
purposes here I'll cite a few objections.

Let us consider Dr. Mantik's reconstruction of "two
head shots" which he elaborately prepares for us on
pages 286 and 287. I have no quarrel with the argu-
ment for two shots to JFK's head (in fact I've written on

14

aw cvaHl>OHl^ VfcIV

*u\uHntttua*nu\nummu>uvutfrou»uvftXHna\uuui\&UHXNiiU}U&\u^ul&a\uu»unaai

PLUME 5, NUMBER 2

fm and before or_at z-225 andnojater. Since the
r/Zapruder film clearly shows JFK in frames up to and
' mc ud,n 8 z ' 207 af 'er which he disappears out of view
and emerges at z-225 which clearly shows him reacting
to a hit, the reason for the re-enactment necessarily had
to include JFK who is obscured by the Stemmons sign
as seen in the Zapruder film.

To complicate the matter further, Dr. Mantik refers to
a study by Michael Stroscio ("More physical insight into
the assassination of President Kennedy", in "Physics and
Sopety'L Vol. 25, no.4 October, 1996) reprinted in
Fetzer s book on pages 343 and 344 which deals with a
study of the motion of Zapruder's camera while filming
ie JFK assassination. As Stroscio puts it, the study was
conducted because "...it is well known that such neuro-
muscular reactions are involuntary and that the power
spectrum for such jerking motions has a peak near a
period of about one third of a second."

Stroscio's study is done by showing 6 vertical lines
with the angular acceleration indicated for the various
frames which begins with Zapruder frame 1 50 and ends
at around frame 334. The second vertical bar shows
excessive movement in the 1 90's section and it is among
the graph s boldest signs of movement. This would,
again, be evidence for some event occurring in this time
period and that is significantly long enough before JFK
disappears behind the sign at z-207. Thus the argu-
ment that alteration of the Stemmons sign occurs after
z-207 makes no reasonable sense for me. If alteration
of any kind were to occur, the time to do it would have
been before z-207 and clearly this was npt_done! It is
beginning to look as if the forgers and conspirators are
having a very bad day on November 22, 1 963: not only
have they missed twice (if you believe the blouse Select
Committee Report) but they can't even get their act to-
gether to alter the film where alteration was necessary!

But let us not be too hard on these "forgers". They
were laboring under a time constraint-all of this had to
be done on the first day . You might say they operated
on the notion of a " Rush to lurlempni "
i9) To return to Twyman's book again: note that in point
#2 above I called attention to Twyman's use of the War-
ren Commission's "evidence" to bolster his contention
of Zapruder film alteration. To be specific, I refer you to
Twyman s statement occurring between pages 144 and
1 45 (see his commentary on Zapruder frame 1 88). He
"rites: "for my purpose, here, I will go along with the

arren Commission. This means that Kennedy was first

THE FOURTH /decade

JANUARY, 1998

J/it somewhere between frames 206 and 210."

I do, not know if Mr. Twyman had access to Prof,
etzer s book, "Assas sination Scienrp " but as we've
already seen in points #2 and #8 above, he is in serious
trouble for making this assertion on several grounds,
iret is that what the Warren Commission said about

, e f J rS T ^ ot JFK (but not necessarily the first

shot)? This was not, as Twyman puts it, "somewhere
between frames 206 and 210" but rather JFK could have
been hit in any frame from 210 to (and including) 225
Twyman's "purpose" is the problem here since as we
have shown that the preponderance of evidence strongly
points to a shot occurring shghtjiibefore Zapruder frame
206. The purpose", as I see it, is a lot like having a
vagrant opinion desperately flying about in space search-
ing for a fact. Neither of the two shall ever meet as long
as we inhabitants occupy the same physical universe in
which the laws of physics must apply.

(10) This is the last of the points I'll be raising but most

f U . redy '! ,S n0t r! He VerV ' aSt Since space constraints
hmit what can offer. The point here I will consider is
what I shall call "the back of the head argument".

The argument boils down to this: many witnesses are
reported as having seen the bacj< of JFK's head com-
Bl etely blown oi i t and these witnesses include not only
assassination witnesses but doctors and nurses who at-
tended both Kennedy's arrival at Parkland Hospital (Dal-
las) and the subsequent autopsy (Washington, D C )
And, as the argument continues, if so many did report
h-s, why is ,t that film evidence (including the Zapruder
film and the autopsy photographs and x-rays) do not

: f r h !r A f S a f ° llow - up to this argument, proponents
of film alteration have suggested that forgers altered evi-

f e m e u° ?u[° rm ‘° ‘ he n ° tion that there wa s no back
of the head blown out.

., 8 ^ IS . 11 * ru , e that witnesses did state that they viewed
e back of the head "completely blown out"? We can
consult both Twyman and Fetzer on this question since
some of these witnesses are utilized by the authors in
heir quest to prove forgery. Twyman makes it very clear
that the Zapruder film shows no back-of-the-head blow-
out stating "...at no frame in the film do we actually see
a blow-out of bone and brains from the back of
Kennedy s head..." (See page 231).

Vet Iwyman's book cites the testimony of four doctors
w o atten ed JFK in Dallas (see pages 191 and 192)
and we will just briefly record here what they had to

say about JFK's head wound-

16